


One Step Back (To Where You Started)

by Rueroux



Category: The Avengers (2012), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Depression, Gen, Paranoia, The Strange Nature of Mental Illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-30
Updated: 2013-07-30
Packaged: 2017-12-21 19:55:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/904251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rueroux/pseuds/Rueroux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you're clinically depressed, there isn't always a reason for an episode. There's no explanation and no cure. It just happens and you don't always even know what's going on at the time and you don't necessarily realize that it was different from any other day after it passes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Step Back (To Where You Started)

For two whole weeks, Tony doesn’t think about anything. He works. He builds thing after thing until he doesn’t know what it is he’s making anymore, just knows that he’s going to keep on building these things until he doesn’t have to anymore. He eats, sometimes. Sleeps, less often.

Pepper calls him every other day and Tony even answers the phone most of the time, because why not? She asks him how is he doing, what is he working on, is he planning to actually show up at the board meeting next Thursday? Tony says words in reply, but later, after he’s hung up, he can’t remember what they were.

More and more often, Tony’s attention focuses and he finds that he’s been staring into thin air for who knows how long. (Jarvis could tell him, but Tony isn’t speaking to Jarvis much these days and Jarvis knows better than to instigate just yet.)

Physically, there is nothing abnormally wrong with Tony. Sure, he’s exhausted and he probably is hungry, and he’s still got a big hunk of metal lodged in his chest, but that’s all par for the course and is not likely to change any time soon.

But Tony’s head hurts and there’s an itch under his skin, like he wants to fold himself in half to take up less space, or turn himself inside out just to feel something different. He burns his hand and wrist while he solders circuitry and it’s not on purpose because he is only half noticing what he’s doing in the first place but he still feels something like glad to see the flushed red marks on his skin, to feel the cold burn on his nerves.

Sometimes Tony starts to think about things not work-related and when that happens, Tony freezes instantly. He holds himself still and tries not to breathe too much until it passes and then he just sits there for a while longer, breathing shallowly, just to be sure there’s nothing left in his thoughts at all.

But his mind is a trap, it always has been, and it knows exactly how best to ensnare him.

And so, eventually, Tony remembers that the Avengers are still there, still living in his tower, he knows he’s probably passed by them in the kitchen or the hall or somewhere, maybe even said words to them, Tony doesn’t remember. They’re still eating and sleeping and existing and most probably still thinking about things. Maybe even about Tony himself.

And once this thought enters his head, Tony can’t stop the flood. Of course they’re thinking about him, he _knows_ they are. Of course they’re thinking about how sick and tired they are of Tony who doesn’t (can’t) engage with them and they’re thinking that he doesn’t deserve to be on the team, that they don’t want to fight alongside someone who can’t even take care of himself or act like an adult or keep the only girlfriend he’s ever actually cared about. Obviously, they’re thinking about how pathetic he is and they’re talking about him and laughing about what a moron he is as a person, barely hidden behind his superficial genius.

About how he isn’t worth the air that so pointlessly sustains him.

Tony’s chest is aching sharp, but it has nothing to do with the arc reactor. His arms and legs feel heavy and he can barely hold himself up so he doesn’t bother. He slides off his chair, down to the floor. Tony’s exhausted mind has tricked his body into the same state, but he musters his last scrap of will and crawls with an effort over to the ratty couch against the wall and hauls himself up until he’s got himself laying halfway across the lumpy thing.

His eyes fall shut, he has no reason to keep them open.

He sleeps and doesn’t dream.

~~~

When Tony wakes up again, his mind is full. He gets up and goes upstairs to shower and he’s thinking about the coffee, strong and dark, that he knows Jarvis will have waiting for him in the kitchen afterwards and about maybe having some toast and that if he’s lucky, Bruce might be cooking something foreign and weird but also weirdly delicious.

Tony wonders if Natasha will finally let him play around with her Widow’s Bite if he offers to let her supervise the entire time and/or buys her a big basket of those little spice-scented tea lights she loves so much.

He thinks he might go bother Pepper at the office later today, maybe with a bunch of strawberries or bananas or coconuts in tow. On second thought, he remembers she’s allergic to one of those things and he’s a little sick of coconut these days anyway and decides to nix the fruit altogether and just bring her the new prototype hearing aid he’d originally made for Clint, but figured would benefit a lot more than just one mostly-deaf superhero. Normal people deserved useful but incredibly cool things, too, after all.

As he rides the elevator up to his floors at the top of the tower, Tony wonders if Steve and Thor ever did go to the zoo like they’d been saying they wanted to for ages now. He thinks about Thor eating a chocolate banana stand out of business and chuckles to himself.

When Tony gets up to his suite, the sun is shining golden and intense through the floor-to-ceiling windows and he can’t help the grin that pulled at his lips. He felt good, like it was going to be a nice day.

Like at this moment his life was perfect and nothing could possibly spoil it.

**Author's Note:**

> Adding note to mention: This story was inspired by a line in Snowdarkred's fic: lies, lines, and the eye of the storm.


End file.
